News summary for November 1

NOVO-OGARYOVO — Head of the Presidential Council for Development of Civil Society and Human Rights Mikhail Fedotov has submitted a list of candidates nominated for the renewed Council. At a working meeting with the president on Thursday Fedotov familiarized the president with the 86 candidates, selected on a competitive basis, who will compete 13 vacant seats in the Council.

The recent Internet rating voting held on September 1-15 showed that maximum 108,000 candidates have applied for membership in the Council; the number of respondents who took part in the Internet voting was 420,000,Fedotov said.

MOSCOW — A draft law on military police will be coordinated till the yearend, Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said.

“The draft law [on military police] is prepared and sent to federal bodies of power,” Serdyukov told journalists on Thursday.

According to the Russian minister, all remarks and recommendations have been taken into account. “The document will be coordinated till the yearend,” he said, adding that the ministry did not see any difficulties in this aspect.

MOSCOW — Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves tumbled by 2.9 billion dollars (or by 0.55 percent) from 529.4 billion dollars to 526.5 billion dollars as of October 19-26, the External and Public Relations Department of the Central Bank said on Thursday.

The level of gold and foreign exchange reserves totaled 498.649 billion dollars as at January 1.

NALCHIK — Leader of the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria Arsen Kanokov signed a decree over the dismissal of the republican government on Thursday.

“Kanokov explained his decision by the need for changes,” the press service of the republican leader told Itar-Tass. “Before the formation of a new government in the republic, the interim government will work,” he said.

First Deputy Prime Minister Valery Zhilov, who was in charge of economic affairs in the government, was dismissed from the post on Wednesday.

NALCHIK — The parliament of Kabardino-Balkaria voted for appointing 52-year-old Ruslan Khasanov the republic’s new prime minister by absolute majority of votes.

MOSCOW — Representatives of seven Moscow public organizations have written an open letter to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, urging him to ban nationalists from holding a Russian march in the capital on November 4.

The letter’s authors believe that the Russian March and its ideology may escalate inter-ethnic conflicts. “Instead of uniting peoples residing in the territory of Moscow, the Day of People’s Unity may provoke a split in our multi-ethnic and our multi-confessional society,” they said.

MOSCOW — A Russian-U.S. agreement on cooperation in the area of adoptions comes into force from November 1.

TBILISI — Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has introduced the post of a special representative of the prime minister for relations with Russia, Georgian government officials said.

The man appointed to the post is a leading diplomat, Zurab Abashidze.

Abashidze has confirmed his appointment in an interview with Itar-Tass to promise to share his ideas of what the process of normalization of relations with Russia might look like a little later.

KIEV — The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Ukraine has processed 99.35 percent of the protocols of elections to the Verkhovna Rada. The Party of Regions polled 30.07 percent of the vote. It is followed up by the Batkivshchina opposition association with 25.47 percent of the vote.The Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms ("UDAR") is third with 13.93 percent. The Communist Party is fourth with 13.2 percent, and the Svoboda (freedom) nationalist political association is fifth with 10.42 percent of the vote.

An average member of Ukrainian parliament, a new convocation of which was elected last Sunday, has membership of one or another party, as well as a record of work as a government employee and is a university graduate, says a report the country’s Central Electoral Commission published Thursday.

At least 33% of the MPs are not novices in Ukrainian politics and have been deputies of regional or local councils in the past.

All the MPs are university graduates and a half of them majored in law or economics. A third of the MPs are engineers and another third are former law enforcement, police or defense officers.

The number of women among the MPs has increased to 42 from 38 and more than a half of them represent the opposition parties.